Obsolete: how much old tech do you have

[zephonic]

I was trouble shooting some internet stuff today, and at some point went through boxes of old tech looking for stuff.

It made realize that over the last twenty years I have spent frightening amounts of money on bits and pieces that are now obsolete.

Dozens of external HDD's, the USB ones still usable but the Firewire ones are paper weights at this point. Tons of cables, too. 10-100Mbps ethernet switches, a MoCA extender (remember those?).

It all cost money, a lot of money. But it all pales in comparison to the amount of money I have spent on now obsolete Apple products.


Ah, the price we pay for the convenience of progress. Or the progress of convenience, not sure.


How much old tech do you have? Anybody still rocking SCSI out there?

 

[eyoungren]

Uhhhh…okay. Do you get into the PowerPC or Early Intel Mac subforums around here much? 😉

I do have a lot of old stuff. But most of it I paid cheap or got free. Because I average about 15+ years behind Apple's current model and it means most people are done with this stuff by the time I get a hold of it. This message being typed in on a 2009 MacPro running Sonoma for instance. My newest Mac is a 2011 MBA running High Sierra.

We'll just start here…



Currently I am trying to get a handle on the disaster area that is my garage. I've got piles of old junk back to a Mac IIci I picked up in 2001 or so. And there is a pile of cables and whatnot sitting on a chair to the right of this photo that you can't see too. My wife will be happy when that disappears from the front room.

 

[conmee]

I sold quite a bunch of stuff off over the past decade, but I still have:

1) TI-99/4a (1981) - in my signature... fully operational system with everything TI ever made for it... only thing I don't have are some Plato educational modules and the thermal printer which I broke and sold a decade ago. The system is fully set up and I still use it every now and then to relive childhood and play some Parsec. I posted a photo of the setup somewhere around here on MR.

2) TI-CC 40 (1983) - TI's compact computer basically a really big calculator with a keyboard. Could use it with thermal printer and had a single line 30 character LCD but you could enter in BASIC code and write small programs.

3) Atari 800XL (1983) - completely functional with a 5.25" external floppy, original packaging and documentation.

4) Tandy 1400 FD "luggable" (1987) - completely functional, I shared some photos of it next to my 16" M5 Pro in one of the threads here... I think it's the thread asking if anyone regretted getting a 14" MBP. Anyhow, still has DOS 3.xx and DeskMate running on it. Played Battle Chess on it last summer.

5) 15" MBP (2019) - this was my daily driver until 2024 and I'd been using a 16" MBP (2019) from 2024 until this February when I sold it to get my 16" M5 Pro. I'm keeping this MBP because it was the final and most powerful Intel MBP to run Mojave. I now have Mojave installed on it along with Win10 in Bootcamp and Parallels 18 for WinXP and Win7 games. It's a great machine with Core i9 8-core, 32GB, 2TB, 4GB Vega 20 GPU. If I ever need a "PC" or play an old game, this machine will be my go-to.

Honorable mention: the only old iPhone I still have is the iPhone 6S as it was the last to include a headphone jack.

I used to have a lot more. The Texas Instruments machines are from childhood and bring back great memories so I keep them. The Atari 800XL and Tandy 1400FD also bring back memories but they usually sit in a storage box in the garage. I have dozens, maybe hundreds of Byte and Compute! magazines all sorts of programming and computer manuals, cassettes and floppies with programs and old data still on them.

I had the urge to build a collection of Macs and PS/2's but thought better of it lol. The Macintosh SE and IBM PS/2 were the main computers I used in college. The library had a fleet of Macs and a fleet of Compaqs running DOS with WordPerfect. The Compaqs were usually sitting alone and lifeless while students queued up in lines waiting to use the Macs with Word and Laserwriter printers for college papers (had to use dot matrix Imagewriters for drafts, could only print one final copy via Laserwriter). But in the engineering department, I was using IBM PS/2 towers for homework that wasn't liberal arts related. Also had a fleet of NeXt computers which were so cool and the campus had a huge Cray computer that I never had access to but you could look at from behind bulletproof glass (so the story went).

 

[Harddrive]

None but I regret getting rid of my iPods wife still has a working shuffle the small matchbook one.

 

[conmee]

Ah that’s right I forgot my iPod 160GB it’s even in my signature. I used that in my car until I got CarPlay working.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I still use my beloved iPod classic, (it has travelled abroad with me earlier this year).

At the moment, I am using an excellent 13" MBP M1 from 2020, which I purchased earlier this year.

However, until earlier this year, I was still using my 2014 maxed out CTO 11" MBA (and it worked perfectly well - that computer, quite literally, has travelled the world with me, and was rugged, reliable, powerful and wonderfully portable).

 

[BotchQue]

Computer gear, almost nothing. I still have my 2007 iMac, and it still runs music/MIDI recording s/w; but anything older (G3, Atari) I either sold or gave away. I still have my last two film cameras (Nikon F-4s, FM-2) but won't be shooting any more film, too expen$ive.

My big disappointment is the death of Surround-sound music. In 2010 I replaced my 30-yr old stereo system with a 5.1 system, including an Oppo universal disk player (plays both 5.1 SACDs and 5.1 DVD-A disks). I built a large collection of surround-sound disks, and was very happy. When Oppo announced they're leaving the disk player market, I bought a replacement/spare.
Well, the first Oppo eventually died, and now my replacement machine is starting to skip/stutter. These things can't be fixed, and universal disk players aren't made anymore. Sony and Panasonic do make Bluray disk players that will play 5.1 SACDs, but neither will play a DVD-A. I can't play those disks anymore.
This is especially frustrating in light of the resurgence of inferior vinyl playback, and even cassette tape (?!?!?) players, but no support for 5.1 disks. 😢

 

[Mousse]

How much old tech do you have? Anybody still rocking SCSI out there?

I've still got my 2x CD-R (FW & USB) and Zip Drive (USB). Zip drive might still work (more likely not), but all my zip disc are dead/clicking. CD burner still works, but who burns at 2x anymore?🤔

I've got a Bondi Blue iBook and a 14" iBook G4, both running Tiger (10.4). I still fire up the 14" to run old Ambrosia shareware games.

 

[Harddrive]

I bought into the whole 5.1 music SACD and DVD-A and fast forward today they are very hard to come by even Blu-Ray audio disc so I am back to red book cd's and streaming and my OPPO is still working sad they are no more they were the industry standard and had my airport express linked to it.I use a ***** ASGUARD 3 with multibit dac from the MBP with all my music in Apple Lossless going to Focal Clears sounds great.

 

[Allyance]

I was always looking for the bleeding edge.

 

[AlumaMac]

Hmm, was in the tech field for 30 years so a lot has passed through my hands but I would usually do a yearly purge on eBay but still have a fair bit of older stuff. Off the top of my head:

Computers: Quadra 650 (601 PPC NuBus Card), Performa 6300, PowerMac 9600, PowerMac G3, PowerMac G4 (DA), PowerMac G4 (MDD), EFI Fiery RIP (MIPS Processor)

Monitors: CTX 20" CRT, Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display, Toshiba 40" LCD TV (2006)

Peripherals: (6) APS SCSI Drives, APS SCSI CD-R, APS SCSI DAT Drive, APS SCSI Jaz Drive, LaCie SCSI CD-R, (2) Micronet SCSI Drives, Micronet DAT SCSI Drive, Pinnacle Micro Tahoe 130MB & 230MB SCSI Optical Drives, Pinnacle Micro Sierra 1.3GB SCSI Optical Drive, Apple TV/Video System NuBus Card, bunch of ADB mice/keyboards

Phones: iPhone OG, iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPhone 6, iPhone 12 mini (still my daily driver 😀)

Game Systems: Computer Perfection, Atari 2600, Sega Genesis, Sony PS1, Xbox 360 (Have a '78 Star Trek and '72 Outer Space Pinball Machines but not sure if those are considered 'tech')

ETA: Still use my original Canon 5D for 'real' photography.

 

[Harddrive]

I seen a GAF Viewmaster at a garage sale but trying to find the disc would be a pain but in my youth I enjoyed them.

 

[AlumaMac]

I seen a GAF Viewmaster at a garage sale but trying to find the disc would be a pain but in my youth I enjoyed them.

Discs are plentiful on eBay.

 

[JoeG4]

I have some. Like I have my PowerBook G4 because my mom bought it for me as a high school graduation gift. lol I have the last 3 laptops I've bought, too.. I did sell 3 of my old desktops this year because I felt like I was hoarding too much. That felt great and got me back a surprising amount of money. Plus, it felt good seeing the buyers be happy with their purchases! That stuff is (hopefully) being put to good use now instead of gathering dust.

That said, I have more monitors than I know what to do with LOL. I have a 57" and 32" on my main desk, a 34" and 25" on my other desk, and another 25" sitting on the floor because I replaced that one with the 32".

... eyoungren really makes my desk look simple though lol. I thought having a 57" and a 32" was hardcore! This dude's rocking 5 30" monitors and what looks like 4 23" monitors. The 30"ers alone are like 9ft of monitor LOL. NICE!

 

[Mousse]

ETA: Still use my original Canon 5D for 'real' photography.

A 20 year old DSLR is obsolete? You could argue that, since DSLR are being phased out in favor of mirrorless. But I don't consider DSLR obsolete; vintage maybe😉. Film is obsolete. I don't know anyone who shoots film anymore.

My DSLR, that gets used a lot. I just shot my son's middle school promotion ceremony yesterday with my 50D (70-200 f2.8) and 20D (24-105 f4). One of these days I'll upgrade to a 6D or 5D. Pixel count doesn't matter, but full frame, that's a game changer.☺️

 

[Abydos]

I admit to a few 😛hone 3gs, Tandy 2000, vic 20 , iBook g4, are an hp 26, hp 35 tech, a Sony betamax, a google number of usb 1 external drives, 256 mb thumb drive, a couple of old dvd drives from dead computers I've kept operational not to mention a collection of old data and data drives

 

[conmee]

I forgot about my PS3. I stopped console gaming at the PS3. I like it because I have a bunch of music (MP3 not lossless) and workout videos on it and I have the Bluetooth controller which also controls my Sony TV and Sony speakers. I understand Sony wanted to focus more on just games after PS3, but the tagline "PS3... It only does... Everything" was pretty truthful at the time. It was a media player, gaming console, plays Blu-ray, music CDs, DVDs, etc. So I still have that hooked up and use it.